Day 368 - Learn to Smile without Guilt

I remember when I was in South Africa in 2009 and Bernard said to me:  “You have to learn to smile without feeling guilty.“

As always I could not immeditaley grasp the full extent of what he was saying. I reflected on his words and realised that I indeed did not feel comfortable smiling – and that I saw smiling as a way of ‚selling out‘. Because (my belief was that) I was not ‚being true to myself‘. Because ‚why do I have to smile‘?

This goes hand in hand with the apprehension I had towards the system in general and the world of money in particular. Because in the world of money, everything was about ‚smiling‘ and keeping up a ‚positive image‘.

So, why should I ‚smile‘ ?

Later on when I would be working at a job back in my country – I started to realise the meaning of what he said. In essence, smiling was neither positive nor negative. Smiling was simply a way of expressing myself by using my face. Now what I found is that the more I would practice smiling, the more I would start enjoying it.  Meaning, I would be able to put on a big smile at will, and within that actually enjoy myself. I remember one day we had to participate in a photo shoot for work because marketing needed our profile pictures and people generaly appreciated my photo because it was astounding how much I was enjoying myself on the picture.

There was no more uncomfortableness, no more ‚guilt‘.

This is also a point of walking through “morality“ regarding the rules I had imposed on myself in orther to be an “authentic person.“ I found that when I smile, the expression of me enjoying myself was authentic. It was not fabricated. Within me smiling was my genuine expression. This is also a statement that I am cool with enjoying myself – that I am ok with me having fun. There was nothing to hide and nothing to pretend.

Since then, I have continued to play with my ability to smile and used it as much as I could with people in my world. I found that when I allow myself to smile in this way people will be much more open with me and much more willing to share themselves with me. Therefore, smiling is also a way of opening yourself up to the world and stepping out of isolation.  

This is therefore a nice way of applying a ‚behavioral correction‘ within yourself and your world as support for an ‚internal correction‘.  

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